High-End Audio System Optimization Techniques… continued

Last post broke down the optimization process into three main steps:

1. Recognizing that a system needs improvement and that it cannot be improved without some radical changes
2. Choosing what those changes should be
3. Evaluating the resultant system for sound quality improvements (or lack thereof )

Hopefully after some thought we might be able to apply some of the techniques from Simulated Annealing algorithms to our dilema here.

Looking more deeply at step 1.

*** Some people are happy with what they have and no matter what other system they hear, they are able to always convince themselves that their system is ‘better’. These people should not be reading this 🙂

*** Some people read the trade magazines are the online forums and hear about how just absolutely wonderful something is and this gives them an urge to upgrade. There is nothing that they can hear that is wrong with their system, but that ephemeral ‘better component’ haunts them – making them wonder if their system may not be so good after all.

How to debunk what they are reading so that they don’t feel like they need to upgrade all the time?

How to learn to differentiate between needing a system upgrade and just reviewer-inspired equipment lust?

How to stop this imagining all the time as they listen to each song about how the song would sound probably so much better if their system just had X, Y and or Z?

*** Romy [if I understand him correctly :-)], at the GoodSoundClub, thinks that a person should always have a clear idea of exactly how they want to improve their system, what property of the sound that they want more of and what they want less of, before they start upgrading.

How does one know how they want to improve their system?

How does one differentiate between infatuation with a different sound a natural preference for a particular sound?

How does one know beforehand whether a particular sound will help one grow in their depth of mucisal appreication, and what is just sugar coating that will take one into on a detour?

How does one know what sound one really, really, really wants?

*** Some people hear a system and they like something about it a lot in comparison with their system – perhaps the bass is better controlled, or more powerful, or the pacing is much more natural and engaging. Sometimes every aspect of this other system they have heard is appealing (in which case they should attempt to replace theirs with an exact copy of this other one, if they can afford it. Done, Finito.). But sometimes the other system sound also has aspects that are not as appealing.

Should they inquire further and see about upgrading their own system to get some of these positive attributes they are hearing?

They only heard this sound for a few minutes, maybe hours – what will it be like to live with? Will they learn to hate it?

How to get the good things from this other system into their own?

Which components in that other system are what is making this aspect of the sound that they are liking so much?

.
.
.
.
Well these are all hard questions.

I know that other hobbies are also so inflicted. Electric guitarists buy and sell amps and guitars like there is no tomorrow (they call it having GAS – Gear Aquisition Syndrome). Looking for that particular ‘sound’ that will both be ‘theirs’ and also be appealing to their audience. We don’t usually have much of an audience – though the ones that we do have, especially the non-audiophiles – should be listened to closely to see if we are anywhere in the ballpark of having a system that sounds enjoyable in a natural sense. Even the finest wine tastes good to a neophyte – so should our finest hifi systems sound good to the non-audiophile.

More next time on some ways to help think about maybe finding an approach that might work for some of the questions above…

For myself, the main question is and will always be:

How does one know what sound one really, really, really wants?

Or needs.